I blogged here back in July about the return of my band. Not really a return, as such, but a rejuvenation. While we continue to write new material, think of new music, and start the recording process, we also got the chance to do something we haven’t done in months: play live. The folks at NYI Atlantic invited JSB to come out and lead worship for Sr High Camp at the Nazarene camp in Oxford, NS. So, my first weekend of September was spent at Big Lake Camp, not only helping provide worship, but just spending time with the students and making relationships. It was a great time and we had some good reflection from the weekend’s speaker, Luke Anderson. It was nice to get our feet wet and play to some folks that aren’t regular Spot attendees. We even got the chance to try out a new JSB tune as well as some new ‘covers’ which were all received.
The second weekend of September saw Catherine go to Ontario for some PRC training. That, of course, left me home with Noah. Catherine had never left Noah alone for that period of time before, so you can imagine we were both reluctant. But, he’s a great little boy and was well behaved for dad. Regardless, it was still an exhausting week as I both took care of him and had 3 playoff games in softball that week.
The next week was my much anticipated trip to Toronto to see U2 in concert. We left around 4:30am on a Wednesday morning and returned swiftly on Friday evening around 10:00pm. Upon my return, I was quickly thrust into more playoff softball games and into my church’s annual Spiritual Life Week services. Although it was a whirlwind trip, I had lots of fun with Ryan, Karleigh, and Kurtis and the concert was absolutely amazing. Even if you aren’t a big U2 fan, the stage itself was enough to entertain. It was an amazing spectacle and I can now die a happy man. (More photos can be seen here but here’s one of the four of us before hand and a great stage shot).
The next weekend, I played a Maritime Worship Workshop mini-tour that covered 4 shows in 3 days, in three different provinces. I was playing guitar for worship leader and Maritimer-gone-sojourner, Tim Milner. While attendance was not good for the services and it seemed we were doing more driving than playing, the music went well despite its expected rushed sound-checks and frantic band turn-arounds. I had a fun time playing and worshipping with other leaders like Loren Lewis and Dan MacAulay. I also had a few laughs at the expense of myself and others including the great sermon illustration, “… it’s like a baby falling off a change table and breaking both of its legs.”
This same weekend, on the Friday night, I also got a chance to see my homeless brother whom I haven’t seen in 8 or 9 years. This was a very interesting visit and was an emotional roller coaster for 1 hour of my evening. This deserves a blog in and of itself, so I will fill ya’ll in on that some other time soon, but I just wanted to fill everybody in on my busy September and talk about some other great things going on in my life. Until then,
Keep fit and have fun.
